This is the third of five articles on Say Yes to Education's fifth anniversary in Syracuse.

Say Yes to Education's calling card when it arrived in Syracuse was its eye-popping guarantee of free tuition for school district graduates accepted at New York's public colleges and participating private schools.

It seemed like a dream come true for city families struggling to make ends meet in a failing economy - and an irresistible magnet that could draw more middle-class families into the district.

It's a pledge Say Yes has followed through on - with some key modifications.

The organization quickly had to alter its blanket promise as the private colleges began setting their own limits. Now, students from families with incomes over $75,000 do not qualify for the private school portion of the program -- although all students are still eligible at state colleges.

Syracuse University is the exception among the private schools - it provides free tuition to Syracuse district graduates regardless of their family income, but set an income cutoff of $100,000 for Say Yes students in Buffalo when Say Yes joined with that district.

View full sizeArielle Kaigler-Hall, who is attending Medaille College on a Say Yes scholarship, makes copies of class lists for the Say Yes summer camp at Franklin Elementary School, where she is working this summer.Michelle Gabel | mgabel@syracuse.com

The free tuition guarantees at the private colleges are funded by the colleges themselves, not Say Yes. However, students going to private schools who don't qualify for free tuition under the income guidelines can get annual $5,000 Say Yes scholarships.

The Say Yes pledge - open to students who have spent at least their last three years in city schools -- does not cover room and board and other expenses. However, it does offer scholarships of up to $2,000 to help with those costs at the state schools.

So far, more than 2,100 students have taken advantage of the tuition pledge.

Many of those students would have gone on to college anyway, but that doesn't mean it hasn't changed lives.

Arielle Kaigler-Hall, who graduated from Corcoran High School in 2010 and is an upcoming senior at Medaille College in Buffalo, says she would likely have gone to a two-year community college - perhaps Herkimer - and then transferred to a four-year school if not for the Say Yes pledge.

She said she has made great strides as a communications major and psychology minor at Medaille, which is a small, close-knit college community.

Tess O'Leary, a 2010 Fowler High School graduate, says she probably would have attended SUNY Oswego and majored in science if she had to pay her own way through college. But the Say Yes pledge enabled her to go to Hobart and William Smith, where she became a public policy major and was able to take advantage of the school's extensive foreign study programs, spending semesters abroad in Wales and Argentina.

She hopes to enter the Peace Corps after her 2014 graduation and then go on to a possible career in education policy.

But neither O'Leary nor Kaigler-Hall will graduate debt-free. Because the Say Yes pledge does not cover room and board, each will graduate with between $20,000 and $30,000 of loans outstanding.

O'Leary says that's a significant amount, but nowhere near the college debt that some students rack up.

The free tuition guarantee at the state schools will eventually be fully funded through a local endowment under the supervision of the Central New York Community Foundation. Say Yes says once the endowment reaches $20 million it will be self-sustaining, with the interest paying for all of the scholarships.

So far, the endowment stands at $6 million in gifts and pledges, with an additional $2 million still available from an SRC Inc. matching gift of $5 million. That $2 million, when it is matched by $2 million from other sources, should bring the endowment up to $10 million within a few years, said Peter Dunn, president and CEO of the Community Foundation.

Dunn said he thinks the endowment can reach its $20 million goal within about five years.

The tuition pledge is a "last dollar" guarantee, meaning that Say Yes and the school district help students get all the aid from other sources that they can, then fill in the gap so families don't have to take out any loans for tuition.

In 2012-13, the average Say Yes tuition grant per student was $3,126. Over the past four years, Say Yes has contributed $3.9 million to the grants.

About half the Say Yes students go to four-year schools, and half to two-year institutions.

Say Yes continues to support students when they are in college, through both individual advising as needed and group meetings in Syracuse.

The organization says about 90 percent of its scholarship students move on from their first year to their second in private, four-year colleges -- well above the national average. It says the retention rates for Say Yes students in two- and four-year state schools are lower, but still slightly above the national average.

Coming next:

Thursday
Say Yes at 5: Will the Syracuse school district, community coalition hold?
After five years, an unprecedented community partnership looks as strong as ever

Friday
Say Yes at 5: Are Syracuse schools improving?
Classroom advances are the school district's responsibility, but Say Yes has tried - haltingly - to clear the way for learning